Chapter 24

The world was zoned out. There was nothing there but the void with me. My mind was in euphoria. There was nothing but focus on my fingers there. I forgot about the world and was simply in the moment. Everything was gone. All the voices that were once there, clouding my mind with anxiety and doubt, all disappeared. The flow state of music was all there was. I was euphoric. 

The music flowed through me. The skills I had drilled in continued on the stage and did not stop. I made no mistakes. I had entered the zone. I was at peace with my piece. Before you knew it the piece continued on and on, perfectly in tune with my ears, fingers and soul. I felt connected to my cello. When I played the Kol Nidre, I spoke to my cello before I drew the first note. This time, I felt like I was speaking with my cello. I felt complete.

When I finished the last note and the last chord, I felt happy. As my bow stopped, I came to reality again. I started to shake but it didn’t matter. A millisecond after that, my ears picked up the resonance left by my cello. A whisper of the peace I had just experienced amplified by the acoustics of the church which were wholeheartedly resonating with me. I took a deep breath and got up as the audience applauded. The shaking slowly calmed down. 

In my eyes, I had already won. I finally came to realize that out of all the things that came from my cello playing, I was able to achieve a flow state on stage that made me feel complete. That was better than anything I could have gotten out of the experience of competing. I had self actualized. I felt confident. I felt as if I was now free from CC. Afterall, I could affirm myself by asking if I liked the music that was stemming out of my fingers. I can genuinely say I really liked my sound and was proud of how much hardship I had to overcome to produce it. 

This journey to self acceptance was long and tedious, but I am glad I made it to a stage in life when I can actually be happy for the sounds I am making. This was already a victory. I opened my eyes. Dreading that when I open them my moment of clarity will surely dissolve and I would be confronted with reality. A sight that would definitely end my euphoric mania. 

The applause continued as I packed up my cello and walked off. The loudness of the applause was the same as the other competitors. That did not bother me one bit though. Nothing was different in the room. Everything was still there just as before I started the Suite No.3. But I was different. I finished my piece and the competition and felt victorious already. I could’ve easily left at that point without hearing the final rankings. I would be happy knowing I gave it my all and did the best I could do. 

As I sat down to listen to the last cellist in the competition. I felt that this competition acted as a perfect farewell to classical music. The edgy, type A part of classical music at least. The only thing left after this for music would be the school orchestra performances and those were really just about having fun. There were no stakes for a public school orchestra concert. Riding the high of this performance, I had a large smile on my face and felt great.

As reality inevitably sank in, I realized that I might actually have a really good shot at winning. Like I said, the only person I was worried about was competitor number 4 and I felt like my intonation was on point enough that I could have one over on him. My strange bowing and micromanaged intentional articulations were definitely outstanding from the 3 Asian clones that went before me. The only way I could lose to them was if my artistic decisions were detested by the adjudicator. As I thought about that I glanced at the adjudicator. I could not get a read on him at all. 

My optimism would be shaken a bit when competitor number 6 got on stage. Turns out, she was my biggest competitor. Her performance was everything I thought I wanted as a cellist. She had it all. She played like a pro. She had the best techniques. A solid foundation and intonation. What was more was that there was warmness to her cello. Not only was she really good, her cello was tiers better than mine on an audible level. She was easily better than X and Mr. Prodigy and was probably around Mr. Prodigy’s age. She was definitely the favorite to win. 

I think the main difference between her and I was that she did not look nervous because she clearly has done this before. She was breezing through and showed not a single shake of the hand. She was definitely an experienced player and competitor. While I had only achieved the gentleness to play due to a moment of clarity from self actualization, I felt like she could perform consistently at the level I just did and on demand. 

As I listened on, I felt that while I was still very happy with the solid performance I put out, it just wasn’t in the cards for me to get a prize or placement today. I had accepted my fate and then began to think that I was just happy that I at least got this over with. I did the competition my way and made it to the finish line with a relatively happy effort. I think that is worthwhile. I am also grateful for the experience of bliss on stage too. That was a very nice experience.

I leaned back on my seat. Welp. Can’t beat that. I guess all that’s left to do is sit back and listen to competitor number 6’s beautiful playing. Honestly, it felt really good. Suite No. 4 was not a piece I drilled nor practiced but I still found it all very moving just based on the articulate competitor number 6 was putting out. I also listened to the piece enough times to know it at least a little. Then, I heard something that didn’t make sense. It didn’t seem clear at first but then I recognized what was going on.

Competitor number 6 played a passage near the end twice. 

Then, she did it again for a total of 4 repeats. Then, in the middle of the passage, she stopped.

She seemed calm as she stared at her cello for a bit then looked up. Then she turned to the judge and, not even missing a single beat, she said blatantly “I think I may have gotten a bit lost”. 

I was surprised. Not so much by her forgetting the piece, but much more with how she just brushed this off like it was a joke. Maybe she wasn’t taking this seriously? Maybe she didn’t care? That didn’t feel like it. She was definitely putting in effort. What could it be? I thought about this more and more as she asked her dad to bring her the sheet music so she could take a look at it. As she took a look at it she smiled at her dad and calmly just said, “oh darn I knew that part was too similar to the previous bit and my muscle memory would get confused”. Her dad laughed a bit then sat back down. She smiled and then asked the judge if she could proceed from a few bars before she got lost. He agreed and said it was fine. 

That was when I realized, it wasn’t that she didn’t care. This person was accepting that she screwed up and wouldn’t win. But she took this mistake and claimed responsibility like a professional. She didn’t show any shame nor cry. She didn’t get angry with herself, she simply accepted the situation and made a commitment to at least finish the piece. I learned something then. Outside of the Asian community I knew, there were other classical musicians who had families that did not scold them for making mistakes. There were families that simply accepted the fact that there would be failure in life and sometimes, instead of avoiding failure by preparing over and over again and scolding any failure they see, it was important to acknowledge failure and keep moving on. This cellist competitor number 6. Not only was she a true pro, she had shown me something else that I thought was fable. She was a skilled classical musician that got better at the craft without the toxicity I experienced. I knew it then, it was possible to succeed in the world without adopting the toxic verbal abuse culture I knew. It was possible to hone your skills and be successful with a successful family and support network. A path that was too late for me to follow. 

I feel like I lost. There’s no winning against someone who simply wins at life. 

I felt this feeling even after they awarded me my first place prize. My certification paper that said first place was just that, a piece of paper. I wasn’t completely torn by this revelation, simply a bit sad. I would describe the scene as very melancholic. I was happy to win but I realized that I was way less composed and way less professional than competitor number 6. Had I been the one that accidentally screwed up, I probably would’ve beat myself up a lot over it.

This was when I realized that there was a whole other world of music outside of the Chinese community orchestra. A world of adult music and professional career artists. A place that didn’t treat music the way the Chinese community did. When it comes to being identified as a solo cellist, I had placed so much of myself worth on whether or not I was proficient at music. Not only that, the value system I made was through the lens of the wants and needs of my previous teachers. I don’t think I ever learned what being a musician really meant until today. I think competitor 6 gave that to me. She had essentially shown me that if you really liked music, it really wouldn’t matter if you lost. You would still be a musician. 

At the same time, a big chunk of this whole Kiwanis thing was to prove myself and to confront my past. With a win from a competition, I had completely gone past that. It was only when the adjudicator thanked everyone for their lovely playing that I felt the happiness that comes from winning. 

Reality set in again, but this time, instead of taking me out of euphoria, it brought me into recognizing the win I just got. I guess you can say I was happy I had proven myself and overcome the imposter syndrome. I was feeling complete again. It wasn’t all for nothing. All my suffering and ill-guided upbringing and with the cello meant something. I had gotten somewhere. I wasn’t just a failure without CC. 

I then happily embraced the positive dunning kruger effect of finding out there is a larger sea outside my pond. This was exciting and yet a little daunting. True musicianship being demonstrated by a pro who had lost a competition to me? What a concept. I wonder what kind of other musicians are there in the world. I wonder how other people are brought up and how it may reflect in their playing and professionalism. The world just got a lot larger. 

I always thought the Chinese community was hardcore and had an edge over Western methods of teaching music because what they did seemed more difficult and hardcore. The poster child of the Chinese community was someone who was practicing as many hours as possible. You must force a strict schedule to stay consistent to be good. I now think that this way of thinking may be naive. 

First of all, more hours practiced doesn’t always mean more improvement. Sometimes when you practice, you go on autopilot. That is not an effective means of learning. In Western culture, just like those UofT faculty professors were saying, they make you think. When you think and are in active participation in the piece you are playing, that is when practice means the most. Being conscious of your will to do something is what makes practice worthwhile. Autopilot drilling only goes so far. 

Furthermore, the way that Asians treat classical music was in a way that was set up to fail. Remember when I was talking previously about how Asian parents would make you do classical music to an insane degree only to tell you you can’t do classical music the minute the talks for university comes in? The way that the Chinese classical music community taught music was in a break-neck type of method. Knowing what I know now, I would say they crammed it like an all nighter for an exam. Classical music was taught and then graded like a tier list. Music wasn’t an art, it was a discipline. 

This very short term way of doing things was not sustainable. The truth is, even if the Asians in the community orchestra were allowed to go into music after highschool, I don’t think they would stay in music. They never learned to love it. They never learned how to be a musician. To fail miserably and still pursue the music. That was missing. To love something so much that even failure feels like winning. 

*I know that there is a correlation between being good at something and loving it but that’s a whole conversation for another day

Speaking of effort. While the West had their image shown as a happy gang of music lovers enjoying life, it still took effort to get there. Failing again and again at something you love wasn’t easy. It wasn’t an intense flame like the Chinese community’s breakneck race for RCM. A goal-oriented fast burn was not the game they played. It was more like a slow burn from a pile of coal. It was heavy and strong. And most importantly, it was enduring. 

Everyone seems to think that Asians have a sense of family and think generationally and in long lifespans. That’s not wrong. But in music, and at least in the music community I grew up in, it was the people of the West that played the long game. They gave it their all to be good at music. They didn’t care what it would cost them in the future. They loved it and went for it. It was a risky investment and rarely pays off. But when it does pay off? Boy did that make it worthwhile.  

I think the bliss I felt in my performance, the part I later thought was just me being delusional, was actually a glimpse into what being a true musician is. Making music you like. Bringing the music you enjoy to the ears of the many. I really wanted to explore this more. I wanted more music. But sadly, I was basically done with music at this point. 

As I mentioned previously, high school was coming to an end. This was the last major event in my high school music career. After Kiwanis, everything played out very monotone. Music was slowly put on the shelf. I would go to University next under the generic Asian flightpath of doing STEM. 

However, it would not be the end of the story for classic music shenanigans. Not yet at least. I would later come to realize that my connection with music was too strong to simply let go in University. 

More on that later.